January 7, 2014

States Confirm Hundreds Of Water Contamination Cases From Fracking, Drilling

Hundreds of cases of water pollution from oil or gas drilling have been confirmed by several states, according to data obtained by the Associated Press. The pollution comes from both hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and conventional drilling methods to extract petroleum and natural gas. Pennsylvania alone confirmed 106 instances of pollution out of 5,000 new wells drilled since 2005. Ohio, Texas, and West Virginia also confirmed pollution in reports of varying detail:

Among the findings in the AP's review:

- See more at: http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/states-confirm-hundreds-water#sthash.VFJj1QWZ.dpuf

January 4, 2014

Obama Win! Conservatives starting to cave and agree on jobs with Democrats

I bring good news this new year! Conservatives have a jobs agenda, one that isn’t built around merely cutting taxes and regulations and getting the government out of the way so the free market can strut its stuff.

The GOP’s ‘Jobs’ Hypocrisy
by Michael TomaskyJan 3, 2014 5:45 am EST
Conservatives are suddenly hot on measures that Democrats have been touting for years. So why can’t they can’t acknowledge their own party is the biggest obstacle?

No—this includes… are you ready?… infrastructure investment, and a monetary policy less obsessed with keeping inflation under 2 percent. It’s new, it’s exhilarating, it’s brilliant! And it’s the same stuff that Barack Obama and most liberal Democrats have favored for years.

When David Frum, whom I respect a great deal, tweets that a new article should be thought of as “a ‘95 theses’ moment for the reformist right,” he gets my attention. So I clicked immediately and read through “A Jobs Agenda for the Right,” by Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute, from the new issue of National Affairs. I liked the essay and even agreed with a respectable percentage of what Strain had to say. But reading it was far more infuriating than reading something by a conservative and disagreeing with every syllable, because articles like Strain’s refuse to acknowledge, let alone try to grapple with, the central and indisputable fact that the contemporary Republican Party—his presumed vehicle for all this pro-jobs reform—has opposed many of these initiatives tooth and nail.

The first big measure Strain touts in his essay is infrastructure. “Anyone who has driven on a highway in Missouri or has taken an escalator in a Washington, D.C., Metro station knows that the United States could use some infrastructure investment,” he writes. He doesn’t lay out a specific program, but clearly he favors fairly broad public investment.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/03/the-gop-s-jobs-hypocrisy.html

January 4, 2014

Rachel Maddows will not back down from Koch Brothers attack machine

No matter how hard they try, Rachel Maddow is not going to read the Koch Brothers' script.

Here's how this whole thing started. In late December, Rachel did a segment on how the Kochs buy their economic studies reinforcing conservative ideas. They do this by donating huge sums to universities and demanding the right to hire faculty who think like they do. That report is here.

Apparently the Kochs didn't appreciate her reporting, because for some bizarre reason they don't mind throwing billions around the political universe but shy away from receiving credit for it. So they had their lawyers send Rachel a letter, and boy was it a doozy, as you'll see in the segment. It included a demand that she read a prepared script by the lawyers retracting her report and apologizing for it.

She did not apologize. I believe her exact words were "I will not renounce or retract reporting that is true, even if the subjects of that reporting don't like it." As for the script, she let them know she does "not read scripts provided to me by anyone else. I don't do requests."

She also reminded them that if they don't like it when the truth is brought to light, they should just stop doing those things that generate attention.

The only thing she forgot was the part where she informed her audience that the Kochs are a couple of libertarian thugs with big wallets and emptier heads. The only thing bigger than their own egos might be their bank accounts.

- See more at: http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/rachel-maddows-epic-koch-brothers#sthash.JzL5aO1n.dpuf

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/rachel-maddows-epic-koch-brothers

January 3, 2014

Thomas Cahill: Conservatives are afraid of pope’s ‘pure Christianity,’

Conservatives are less concerned with the new pope’s politics than they are with his religious teachings, said scholar and author Thomas Cahill.

Republicans, including right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, have criticized comments made by Pope Francis about unfettered free market economies and the lack of concern in capitalist societies for the poor.

“They’re not really afraid of ‘pure Marxism,’” Cahill said, quoting one of Limbaugh’s complaints. “They might be more afraid of ‘pure Christianity,’ which it sounds to me like what he’s spouting.”


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/03/thomas-cahill-conservatives-are-afraid-of-popes-pure-christianity-not-pure-marxism/

January 3, 2014

Conservative group calls to lynch Obama and make it a ‘national holiday’

A conservative Facebook group this week suggested that the lynching of President Barack Obama should be made into a “national holiday.”

Earlier this week, Examiner.com’s Robert Sobel pointed out that the Facebook group “America the next generation” had posted a photo of the president in a noose with the caption “The making of a National Holiday.” The image was apparently a composite of Obama’s head and a frame from the leaked video of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein being executed.

After some discussion between members of the “America the next generation” group and criticism from other Facebook users, the photo was eventually taken down. Some group members feared that lynching the president could make him into a “martyr.”


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/02/conservative-group-calls-to-make-obamas-lynching-a-national-holiday/